


GTA: Vice City | The Unofficial Novelization

by OberonPrime



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Genre: 80s, A few horny scenes here and there, Gen, Lemony Narrator, Only updating tags as the actual characters/pairings are introduced, if you've played the game: that's it. that's the content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OberonPrime/pseuds/OberonPrime
Summary: What it says on the tin. My attempt to immortalize this game in written format, from start to finish.They were probably dealing with an even crazier Tommy now, aged like a Sicilian vintage after all his time in maximum security. Nobody could blame Sonny for cracking a bit. And if the boss was cracking, just think about what the sight of him would do to the little people.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. An Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

> There will be some minor liberties with the dialogue/timing/pacing etc. just for the sake of better narrative flow in writing. I'm not really looking to ape the game down to the letter. That said, these are more or less the events as they occur, with my own interpretation of characters and their internal monologues added in.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonny's conversation with his Capos in Liberty City. Tommy's botched drug deal.

“Tommy Vercetti?”

If you knew Sonny Forelli for shit, you knew he was a man used to getting his way. And if you lived in his part of town, you  _ had _ to know him for shit (at least if you wanted to live in some kind of peace), but not for  _ too _ much shit (unless you wanted either no peace or eternal peace, know what I’m saying?). He’d been the head honcho of Liberty City for long enough that anyone who mattered had learned how to work with him, and anyone who didn’t want to had learned not to matter.

He was competent at what he did for his people. Which was a good thing, because he wasn’t going anywhere, competent or not. There weren’t many schmucks around anymore who could be assed to stop Sonny if he was really set on something, and since Old Phil got strung up in the back room of Marco’s, well... most of them shut up altogether. Leadership had to change sooner or later, so the wisdom went. Don’t like how things are going? Keep your head down and pray.

Joey had never been much of a praying man, and on most days he had no quarrel with Sonny. But the flash of anger in his boss’s eyes when he broke the news to him—almost immediately smothered by a cold, sharp cunning—would have put the fear of God into a much braver son of a bitch.

“Tommy Vercetti.”

Nobody said another word until Sonny had taken a large swig of his beer and set it back down, heavily. Joey watched the condensate dribble down the sides of his mug for a moment—it was a hot and humid day in Liberty City, as days there tended to be—before raising his eyes again.

“Huh, shit,” grumbled Sonny, absent-mindedly raking his fingers through his hair; a rare show of vulnerability that few had the “privilege” of seeing. “Didn’t think they’d ever let  _ him  _ out.”

It was Sonny’s influence that had saved Tommy’s head from the chopping block fifteen years ago, but neither Joey nor Pete felt like pointing that out now, for some reason.

“He kept his head down,” said Pete. “Helps people forget.”

“People will remember soon enough.” Sonny was pinching the bridge of his nose now. “When they seem him walking down the streets of their neighborhoods… It will be bad for business.”

There sure was a lot to be remembered about Tommy Vercetti. Joey and Pete hadn’t personally seen the debacle that put him behind bars, but that was because the only people alive to tell the tale now were the coppers that got him. Eleven on one, I tell you. He’d always been quite the loose cannon, but when he walked away from that set-up nobody could’ve called it. Even if he did walk away in handcuffs. 

They were probably dealing with an even crazier Tommy now, aged like a Sicilian vintage after all his time in maximum security. Nobody could blame Sonny for cracking a bit. And if the boss was cracking, just think about what the sight of him would do to the little people.

“Well, what are we gonna do, Sonny?”

Sonny had been around for plenty of time, though, and not for nothing. When deferred to, the sun-baked bastard seemed to collect himself and get thinking right before Joey’s eyes.

“We treat him like an old friend,” he said with a grim smile. “Keep him busy out of town, OK? We been talking about expanding down South, right? Vice City is twenty-four carat gold these days. The Colombians, the Mexicans… hell, even those Cuban  _ refugees _ are cutting themselves a piece of some nice action.”

He came down hard on “refugees”; Pete uneasily shifted in his seat. “But it’s all drugs, Sonny. None of the families will touch that shit.”

“Times are changing,” said Sonny, waving his hand impatiently. “The families can’t keep their backs turned while our enemies reap the rewards.”

Joey found the way Sonny talked about  _ enemies _ to be simplistic, maybe even childish. As with most of his thoughts on Sonny, he kept it to himself. There was a reason he and Pete were always seated facing Old Phil and the shanks of meat in the cold storage. How the hell did Marco keep that thing from stinking out the whole establishment, anyway? Not a speck on the body; even his clothes looked freshly ironed. He briefly pictured Marco dusting it down in the evenings like a piece of furniture. Sheesh. Real slick, Sonny.

“So,” Sonny was saying, “we send someone down to do the dirty work for us, and cut ourselves a nice quiet slice. OK? Who’s our contact down there?”

“Ken Rosenberg,” Joey said witheringly. “Schmuck of a lawyer. How’s  _ he  _ gonna hold Vercetti’s leash?”

“We don’t need him to. We just set him loose in Vice City, we give him a little cash to get started, OK? Give it a few months. Then we go down, pay him a little visit, right? See how he’s doing.”

If he remembered Tommy well enough, and Joey hoped he did, it seemed pretty optimistic. Sonny wasn’t stupid, but he  _ was _ used to getting his way. Maybe he’d gotten his way one too many times. He decided to keep that thought to himself as well, though.

Sometimes a man’s just gotta wait and watch.

*

Liberty City was hot. Vice City was hotter.

As Tommy Vercetti emerged from the overcooled innards of Escobar International, the heat seemed to leap up off the tarmac and rush towards him like a forlorn lover. He could feel his tastefully hideous floral shirt darkening with sweat by the time Harry and Lee emerged.  _ Just great _ , he thought, with total sincerity. It was the first sincere thought he’d had in some time.

Tommy was no stranger to heat, whether physical or metaphorical, but he’d never liked it much before the slammer. Something about the place had a way of remaking you. It broke you down to your essentials and shuffled the rest around like so much scrambled egg, and if you made it out with your brain intact you were still  _ a _ person, but you sure as shit weren’t the  _ same _ person, even if you knew to put on the act. When you could take the heat for granted, it was an annoyance. When you’d had to shiver your way through about fifteen winters and eaten some of the foulest meals ever devised by man, you began to notice (and appreciate) abundance in a lot of things.

It wasn’t like the cold and hunger had been an accident, or just plain negligence. Tommy had been a headstrong greenhorn when he got thrown in, but even then he knew what power was—he’d just gotten started tasting it himself, after all. The young Tommy that effectively died to that power did put up a fight. The old Tommy appreciated that, too. But he was done grieving for the kid. Closure would come when it came.

The “Harwood butcher” was long gone. He was just an old Tommy Vercetti now, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted back in the game.

“What,” he said defensively, as Lee gave him a searching look. Don’t reflect on prison time in public, kids. Your colleagues can tell. “Let’s go.”

Waiting for them just a dozen yards away in a white sedan was an absolute weed of a man. It was fucking incredible. When Tommy’s eyes first fell on his lilac two-piece suit and wire-rimmed glasses, he found himself flailing in disbelief— _ Has Sonny lost his goddamn mind? _ —a feeling that only got worse as the man offered them a shaky smile and opened his mouth to speak.

“Hey, hey, guys! It’s, uh, Ken Rosenberg here! Hey! Heh, heh, hey, great, hey!”

Jesus H. Christ.

“Well, uh, I’m gonna drive you guys to the meet, okay?” He was now leaning on the sedan’s roof in a valiant attempt at casualness. It might have worked if his face didn’t look like he’d just shit his pants. Not knowing what to say to this imbecile, Tommy nodded; Harry and Lee simply ignored him and got in.

The nod seemed to breathe a little confidence into Rosenberg—or maybe he was just assured that they weren’t going to kill him immediately. “Now, I’ve talked to the suppliers,” he continued, less falteringly, “and they are  _ very _ , huh-ha… very keen to start a business relationship. So if all goes well, we should, uh… be doing very nicely for ourselves. Which is, y’know, good.”

Tommy buckled up in the back seat (life and limb also felt dearer after the slammer) and pointedly turned to the window, hoping not to enable more of his nervous chatter.

No such luck. Rosenberg continued to ramble himself to composure all the way to the docks. Tommy couldn’t find it in himself to tell him to can it, not while the late afternoon sun was sweet on his face and Vice City seemed to beckon to him with its garish lights and gaudy girls. It was almost possible to forget that he was on his way to a cocaine deal.

He’d missed a chunk of the eighties, what with doing time and all, but it was still there, waiting for him. Maybe he still had a quiet life ahead of him. Maybe he could do this last job and convince Sonny to let him disappear—the good kind of disappear, not the kind with the cement blocks. It would be compensation for not squealing on the family. 

But Sonny seemed to have changed with the times, too. They’d never have gotten their hands dirty with coke fifteen years ago. There was a lot he had to get up to speed on.

_ Stolen time _ , Tommy thought dispassionately. He’d been down this road enough in prison.  _ I’ll stay in the game till I know who stole it. Hunt them down. Make them pay.  _ Et cetera. He was in a good mood, okay?

The sun was setting by the time they arrived at their destination, and he blamed the light show for making him like what he saw. The Vice City docks were a series of stubby, featureless concrete cubes with few actual ships in sight, half-heartedly surrounding a shitty yard that had long been repurposed as a parking lot. Hell, it wasn’t even properly fenced off—he peered over the edge, eyeing the drop down to the water, and was suddenly glad that they’d been picked up by someone who knew the area.

Logic would have you believe that hard men like Tommy Vercetti grow harder in prison. That they might. Whether they stay hard when they’re back out in the free world is a different story.

“Okay,” said Rosenberg, “that’s them in the chopper.”

Seemed like “hideous” was just the unofficial dress code around here, from the looks of it. Tommy’s spirits were already pretty high, or they would have soared at the sight of the man climbing down from the gloomy gray chopper and his foul red shirt:  _ he was free, and he was living again _ . He did not understand why a damn coke deal had him like this.

“Alright, here’s the deal.” Rosenberg leaned in, clearly calmer now than he’d been at the airport. Did he have this bit rehearsed? “They want a straight exchange on open ground. Alright? Okay. Stay tight, let’s go.”

If Tommy had had to guess, he would’ve thought the poor sap was just relieved that he didn’t have to leave the car.

The thing is, though. No matter how good you feel going into a drug deal—or really any extremely illegal deal with hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands—it’s hard not to clench your asshole a bit when you actually get down to it. Tommy, a sensible man, certainly wasn’t above clenching his own asshole as the three of them exited the car and began the slow, wary walk towards Mr. Red Shirt With The Two Cases. He’d be a fool not to. Big crime was big crime, and it didn’t care that he’d just put in fifteen years.

Years later, he’d reflect on this knowledge, and think that the clenching was what saved his life.

“Got it?” he said in the present, as they neared Red Shirt. The man gave them a toothy grin that wasn’t enough to get Tommy to unclench.

“One hundred percent pure grade-A Colombian, my friend.” 

Judging by the accent, he might as well have been describing himself. “Let me see it.”

“The greens?” asked Red Shirt, setting the cases down on the ground.

“Tens and twenties, used.” Tommy nodded at Harry and Lee, who furtively held their own cases open for a moment before snapping them back shut. The man’s grin widened.

“I think we have a deal, my friend! Ha ha ha! Ha h—”

He was still laughing as gunfire erupted from all around them and the bullets tore into him.

And this was where clenching came in handy. Young Tommy’s reflexes had been what gave him an edge in Harwood, and he’d been almost positive the kid had taken them with him to the grave, but they worked just as well for old Tommy now. He knew there was no holding his own with his fists in a gunfight, and he’d grown too fond of life to risk stopping for the goods.

Kind of blows that the first thing most of us will do when faced with a firing gun is panic. Also kind of blows that that’s the worst thing you can do if trying to survive.

As Lee and Harry crumpled to the ground, Tommy sprinted back to Rosenberg’s car—those six yards felt like six miles among the gunshots, six miles of thinking  _ Just great _ with no sincerity whatsoever and flashbacks to Harwood and how pissed he’d be if he died  _ now _ —and the next thing he knew he was in the back seat yelling to  _ GO ON, GET OUT OF HERE, DRIVE DAMN IT _ —

—and they’d pulled out of the docks and Rosenberg, audibly whimpering, had snaked through at least a dozen lanes and side-streets before they were sure they weren’t being tailed and then, and  _ only then _ , did Tommy unclench.


	2. What We're Gonna Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy has a friendly, nonviolent chat with Sonny. Rosenberg does his thing. A bike is stolen.

Neither man said a word until they slowed down near the Hotel Harrison. The ride seemed to have shrunk Rosenberg somehow, like he’d shed parts of his soul with the exhaust fumes, and his face was whiter than the coke they should’ve been clinking glasses over right now.

“I poke my head out of the gutter for one freakin’ second and fate shovels  _ shit _ in my face.” He continued gripping the steering wheel long after he’d clumsily pulled over, as if for dear life.

“Go get some sleep,” Tommy said wearily.

“What are you gonna do?”

He shrugged. He was more used to being second-in-command than the one calling the shots, and he hadn’t had to do either since ’71. “I’ll drop by your office tomorrow and we can start sorting this mess out.”

That seemed to be all the assurance Rosenberg needed, though, because he tumbled out of the car and ran inside the Harrison as fast as his legs could take him. Tommy couldn’t resist shaking his head like a sixty-year-old complaining about kids on his lawn. Where did Sonny dig these motherfuckers up from?

Rosenberg had left the keys in the ignition (because of course he had) but Tommy didn’t much feel like causing the man any more heart trouble, and he’d had enough excitement for one night. He didn’t have to wait long to catch a cab. The driver’s shirt looked exactly like the one that had caused his heart to leap when he saw it on the Colombian; he thought of him and his toothy grin, and wondered who’d gotten the bodies.

It all felt like it had happened weeks ago. Prison? Might as well be a past life.

“Get me to the—to the most normal hotel you know. Not the best. Not the shittiest. Just somewhere a guy can stretch his legs for a few days.”  _ And grab a drink or two, _ he felt like adding, but decided against it. There was work to be done.

The cabbie snorted agreeably. A few minutes later they were parked in front of something called the Ocean View Hotel, and a few minutes after that Tommy was sprawled out in a respectable queen, missing more of his money than he’d normally have agreed to part with. The bed itself felt like heaven after the slammer, but he couldn’t say the same for the rates.

Some shit had clearly gotten worse while he’d been away. The thought made him feel better about being back in the game, knowing he didn’t have to sit and take it. Sucked to be one of the bastards with no other choice.

The game, though. Shee-it. He was gonna have to deal with Sonny.

“Tommy! Tommy, it’s been too long.”

The first thing he noted (with some satisfaction) when he heard Sonny’s voice over the tinny hotel phone was that his boss now sounded a hell of a lot older, too. The second was that he was still a fuck. He loudly cleared his throat, not caring to dignify Sonny with a proper response.

It didn’t work quite as intended. “I know, I know,” said Sonny, almost laughing. “You’re just overwhelmed with emotion. Fifteen years! Seems like only yesterday.”

That was certainly a way to put it, yeah. “I guess that’s a perspective thing.”

“Hey, doing time for the family is no piece of cake,” said Sonny, and Tommy knew he had to get some sleep, ‘cause he could’ve sworn the old bastard’s voice softened a bit there. “But the family looks after its own, OK? So how’d the deal go down? You sittin’ on some white gold?”

It wasn’t quite as clench-worthy an ordeal as the fiasco itself, but he gritted his teeth and sat up nonetheless.

“Look, Sonny… we were set up.” He was really doing this? Alright, then. “The deal was an ambush. Harry and Lee are dead—”

He was immediately cut off by Sonny’s howl of anger. “You better be kidding me, Tommy! Tell me you still got the money!”

So he  _ had _ been imagining things. Just what a guy needed to realize at a time like this.

“No, Sonny,” said Tommy hollowly, now holding the receiver two inches away from his ear and massaging his temples. “I don’t have the money.”

“That was my money, Tommy! MY! MONEY!”

A dull  _ thunk _ on the other end told him Sonny had probably taken out his frustrations on the phone. No doubt he wished he was doing it to Tommy instead, never mind that he’d just beaten the odds in a seemingly hopeless ambush for the  _ second goddamn time _ in his career—what happened to keeping a guy around for having a charmed life?

“You better not be screwing me, Tommy,” came Sonny’s voice again after a moment, calmer but no less dangerous, “cause you know I’m not a man to be screwed with.”

“Wait, Sonny,” said Tommy, who  _ was _ a braver son of a bitch than Joey could ever hope to be, and wasn’t above praying if he felt like it. “You have my personal assurance that I’m going to get you your money back. And the drugs. And I’m gonna mail you the dicks of those responsible.”

“Hey, I already know that. You’re not a fool, Tommy, but I warn you, neither am I. If it was anybody else you’d be  _ dead _ already.” He didn’t like the sound of that much, not after doing time, especially not after  _ doing time for the family _ . “But because it’s you, because we got history, I’m gonna  _ let _ you handle this.”

He just wanted the call over with at this point. He heard himself saying some shit about giving Sonny his word and then saw himself hurling the receiver to the ground, just for good measure. Then he got back to his decadently average bed, crawled under the covers without taking his scuffed-up sneakers off, and passed out for fourteen hours.

Rosenberg was so jittery it almost made Tommy feel better.

“Go get some sleep, he says.”

They were at his office, which was every bit as kitschy as Tommy had expected, and the man himself was pacing a rut into his cheap carpet. As he spoke, he giggled madly, but without an ounce of mirth. “I have been. Sitting. In  _ this chair _ ”—he gestured wildly at the only chair ugly enough to be his—“all night. With the lights off. Drinking coffee. This. Is a disaster. We are  _ so  _ screwed, man.”

Tommy didn’t need to be told that Rosenberg was running on nothing but caffeine and dreams at this point, but there were things a man did not feel like interrupting a rant for.

“These gorillas, listen to me, are gonna come down here and  _ rip _ ”—more helpful gesturing—“my head off. It’s ridiculous! I did  _ not _ go to law school for this! Okay,” he concluded, rounding on Tommy like he’d only just realized he had an audience, “now what the hell are we gonna do?”

_ You are going to go to bed, _ Tommy considered saying for a second,  _ because staying up all night to do crime is for the movies. _ He tried to imagine what the Liberty City crime scene would be like if overseen by a pack of high-strung Rosenbergs. Fuck it, though. He wasn’t much of a babysitter.

“Shut up, sit down, relax,” he ended up saying instead. Rosenberg obeyed immediately. “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna find out who took our cocaine. And then, I’m gonna kill them.”

It was a shit plan, and he wasn’t really feeling the challenging look he gave Rosenberg as he put his feet up on the dusty desk either, but this guy was nothing if not easily cowed.

“That’s a good idea,” he gasped. “That’s a great idea! Let me think, let me think, let me think.”

God have mercy.

“Oh!” And there was the spark of life again. As transparent as he was easily cowed. “There’s this retired Colonel—Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez—he’s the one that helped me set up this deal, well away from Vice City’s established thugs. Okay? Now, listen. He’s holding his party out in the bay on his expensive yacht and all of Vice City’s big players gonna be there, okay? I have an invite—of course I have an invite. But there’s  _ no way _ that I’m going out there, sticking my head out the door—no way! Not gonna happen—”

“I told you, shut up!” Tommy snapped, already rising from the chair (with some reluctance, because it was ugly as sin, but comfy for all that. But maybe that was the fifteen years talking too). “I’ll go myself.”

“Haha, whoa, hey!” laughed Rosenberg, this time with sincerity. “Hey, I like 1978 too, but you know, this isn’t gonna be a beer-and-strippers do. I mean, no offense, but I think you might turn heads on the runway for the wrong reasons.”

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” Tommy asked half-jokingly.

“Okay, look, here.” Rosenberg held out a business card, still chuckling. “Stop by Rafael’s, tell him I sent you. He’ll make you look respectable. Okay, go. C’mon.”

_ Who does this guy think he is? _

“Now I gotta dress like a chump as well as hang out with them?” he grumbled on his way out, making sure Rosenberg heard him. “I  _ like _ this shirt.”

Tommy knew that liking a shirt and wearing it to a  _ soirée _ were two different things, though, and after lightening his pockets some more with his cab to Rafael’s, he was almost thankful for Rosenberg’s references. He’d just come out of the starchy interior of the store in an equally starchy suit, feeling incredibly stupid—and he was not a man who was easily made to feel stupid—and even more incredibly broke, when a bike across the street caught his eye.

It was the small mercies sometimes, you know?

The owner, a punk in a leather jacket, had dismounted and was already walking away by the time he realized what was happening. He barely had time to shout, “No! My bike!” as Tommy gleefully wheeled away to the pier.

It was the circle of life after all, he mused, the wind in his hair stirring him even despite the circumstances. (Maybe he could find the time for a quick lap around the area before hitting up the Colonel?) He was doing his bit to keep the little guy in Vice City a bit safer. Sometimes the little guy lost a bike or two in return.

_ È la vita. _

He didn’t know if he cared for Vice City’s little guy so much as for the city itself. It was sexier than anywhere he’d seen growing up in Liberty, with its sinuous beaches and graceful palm trees, and though he knew he was eventually going to fall out of love with it—same as one falls out of love with a favorite dancer at the club—he was determined to make it last. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had the luxury of being truly enamored with anything.

Couldn’t imagine why, but he had the feeling it was over fifteen years ago.  _ Stolen time. _

Staying in the game now all came back to Harwood. Even when it was about Sonny, and the promise he’d made when desperate for some sleep, and the fact that he’d be stuffed and served up on a platter if he didn’t make good on it… it was still really about Harwood. He wasn’t going to lose sight of that.

Next stop: Colonel Cortez.


	3. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Col. Cortez and Mercedes. Kent Paul is glossed over. Lance makes an appearance.

The atmosphere on board Cortez's yacht was oppressive. For the first several minutes the guests all seemed to melt together before Tommy's eyes into one over-perfumed mass of riches; when a brunette with a perky bob caught his eye and winked, he briefly considered throwing himself into the water and swimming to the other side of town. What stopped him was the abrupt realization that he hadn't gotten any tail in fifteen years. Then the fact that he couldn’t swim. Then the cocaine thing. In that order.

_ Eyes on the prize, Tommy,  _ he thought grimly. Where was the colonel anyway?

“ _ Buenas noches! _ ” rang out a gruff voice from the front of the deck. A sturdily built man in sweat-stained khaki, just as weather-beaten as Sonny but with genuine warmth in his dark eyes—that couldn't  _ not _ be Colonel Cortez. Tommy took a good look at him as he drew closer, arms held out in a gesture of welcome, and almost immediately decided to like him.

“I understand you are here on the behalf of Mr Rosenberg,” said Cortez affably. “I trust any recent problems have not affected his health or, ah”—their eyes briefly met, and it was understood by both what kind of man Rosenberg was—“ _ mental well-being _ . Mister, ah…”

“Vercetti,” Tommy supplied with a slight bow. He'd never been too good with this side of the game, but it wasn't too late to learn. “He's just got a touch of… agoraphobia.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Cortez said with a hearty laugh. “And you?”

Looked like Tommy was getting the training wheels at any rate. He shrugged as disaffectedly as he could manage in his starched blazer, which was already starting to soften with sweat. “I just want my merchandise.”

A few more creases appeared on Cortez's face.

“Ah,” he said quietly, drawing them aside, away from the rumbling of the speakers that were blasting music Tommy hadn't been around to see get popular. “It is an unfortunate set of circumstances for all involved. I have, of course, initiated my own lines of inquiry, but such a delicate matter will take time. Perhaps we will talk later.”

Coming from anyone else, Tommy would've read that as dismissal—perhaps rightly so. But the colonel, with his bustling yacht and cheery countenance, didn't seem to have much guile in him. He wondered how such men got their hands dirty with the game in the first place. Or maybe you could afford a little earnestness after so many years of hard work. Sonny clearly hadn't gotten  _ that _ memo.

“Meanwhile,” continued Cortez, raising his voice to its customary boom again, “let me introduce you to my daughter. Mercedes!”

Well, wouldn't you know it—it was the brunette with the bob. Tommy hadn’t quite lost sight of her this whole time, and she didn’t seem to have done so either; she looked him dead in the eye as she detached herself from the crowd and sashayed elegantly towards them. Evidently she was aware of the effect she was having on him. Or rather, on his balls. Not even prison could make a romantic out of Tommy Vercetti.

“ _ Cara mia, _ ” said Cortez, “could you look after our guest while I attend to my necessary obligations?”

Mercedes, who had begun to grab Tommy’s arm before her father even finished speaking, smiled widely. “Of course, daddy.”

She sounded exactly like he’d been expecting. Wait,  _ had _ he been expecting something? Whatever. He had to see if she could handle a little teasing.

“‘Mercedes’?” he chuckled as she began steering him towards the other partygoers.

“You try living with it,” she purred, completely unruffled. Keeper material. “Anyway… let me point out some of our  _ more distinguished _ guests.”

He spent the next quarter hour attempting to memorize the faces of Congressman Alex Shrub, a trash-talking heavy only known as “BJ”, rockstar Jezz Torrent (“Impotent,” Mercedes said witheringly), and a repulsive trio consisting of a pastor, a film director, and a Gonzalez. Cortez’s right hand, if Mercedes was to be believed. Something in her voice made him commit the slob to memory with a little extra effort.

“Colonel!”

Tommy turned to see Cortez greeting a five-foot-nothing bastard who’d just emerged from the lower deck. The dress code didn’t seem to apply to him, or to Gonzalez for that matter—both were bedecked in floral eyesore shirts not unlike what Tommy usually wore. Too important to give a shit, eh? Or was he himself just that low on the totem pole?

“Take us past that new guy,” Tommy muttered to Mercedes, who gave him an obliging grin. He caught snatches of the conversation as they ambled past—apologies for being late, something about barbarians at the gates, and keeping one’s friends close. Unremarkable, overcompensating shit he might’ve heard from Sonny way back when they were both a little more tender and green. But when the hobbit started talking about “liquidating” his enemies, Cortez started a little and looked around hurriedly with new trepidation. Tommy and Mercedes quickened their pace.

“Who’s the loudmouth?” he asked quietly.

“Ricardo Diaz,” said Mercedes, not trying to hide her contempt. “He’s mister coke.”

“Mer-say-des!” bellowed Diaz, as if he’d overheard them somehow. She shied like a startled animal, but didn’t let go of Tommy’s arm.

“Oh, I was just taking my friend back to town,” she said lightly. “Another time, Ricardo! Come  _ on _ —” Tommy was roughly pulled away from Diaz and Cortez, and he thought he saw real pleading in Mercedes’ eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

He kept an eye on Diaz as they got off the yacht. There was no way “mister coke” didn’t know  _ something _ about the drugs, directly responsible or no, and he was probably gonna have to follow that scent—but then he found himself in the luxurious interiors of Mercedes’ gleaming Cheetah and stopped thinking about all that. Not even before Harwood had he sat behind the wheel of a sports car much, let alone with an eager minx at his side. For just a second, he allowed himself to believe that he was young Tommy Vercetti again and actually still cared.

He knew he had to be a laughably rusty driver by now, and sure enough he very nearly drove them off the edge of the pier trying to back out of the parking space, but Mercedes didn’t seem to mind. He could feel her black eyes—very like the colonel’s—sizing him up as he fumbled with the gear shaft. Muscle memory kicked in eventually, though, and soon they were out on the main road and leisurely cruising towards Pole Position Club.

“Will you be working for my father?” asked Mercedes after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

He thought of the men that were already working for her father, and of her ill-disguised loathing for them.

“Maybe,” he grunted.

He was suddenly aware of a warm weight on his thigh; his crotch, which had quieted down somewhat, stirred to life again. Mercedes was leaning in with an intent smile. Her hoop earrings twinkled in the late afternoon sun, casting shimmering spots of light all around them.

“Do you mind me resting my hand in your lap?”

Funny question to ask a guy driving your car with a visible boner. “...Maybe.”

Her smile widened, then was replaced with a playful pout. “It’s so  _ hard _ —” Tommy gave her a sharp look—“having a rich and powerful father.  _ Vamos. _ ”

They stayed as they were until they’d pulled up outside the club. Mercedes’ fingers brushed right up against his now aching balls as she withdrew her hand and slithered out of the car.

“See you around, handsome,” she drawled, turning and disappearing into the club’s hot pink interior. Tommy waited for the doors to close behind her and then immediately began fumbling with his belt buckle.

“I’m sure you will,” he muttered.

Young Tommy might actually have masturbated in Mercedes’ car before returning it to the parking lot near the colonel’s yacht, and possibly even considered just keeping the car itself as a present for his trouble. Old Tommy, while a little tempted on both counts, wasn’t that stupid. The haze of pent-up arousal she’d left him in had long subsided by the time he was back at the waterside, and as he mounted his stolen bike and cut a course for Rosenberg’s office, he was quite cold again.

_ An easy old man and his even easier daughter. _ The Cortezes, it seemed, were manageable enough. But just as he’d begun to wonder if Vice really was overrun with nothing but softies and pushovers, he’d been presented with Diaz… and now things were beginning to fall into place. He, of all people, hadn’t been sent down here for nothing.

Harwood butcher or not, it looked like he wouldn’t be retiring just yet.

*

The next couple of rounds he had to make were uneventful. Rosenberg had him go after a gangly bitch at the Malibu Club called Kent Paul, who was sporting the tallest high-tops Tommy had ever seen and a hairdo to match. He’d expected the accent, but when it actually fell on his ears he thought he would’ve gladly punched the guy even if it wasn't in his interests to do so.

Luckily for him, it was. After a bit of manhandling and towering menacingly over people, he found himself speeding off to a different part of town not far from his hotel. “Some chef-cum-trumpetshifter” was how Paul had described his next stop in this web, sprawled on the floor and too drunk to even be properly afraid. And operating out of a hotel on Ocean Drive. Eenteresting.

He wasn’t terribly sure how he was going to identify the right chef, or identify any chef at all if he wasn’t wearing a comically oversized hat, but as he passed by an alley just behind Ocean Drive he decided to go through it just to be safe. And sure enough, sneaking furtively out the rear staff entrance of a building was a portly figure in a chef’s hat. Tommy quickly got off his bike and approached on foot—he wasn’t prepared for this to be a conversation  _ or _ a confrontation.

Hell, he didn’t even know if this really was his man, he thought with some irritation, just before the chef noticed his presence and turned towards him with narrowed eyes.

“Whatchoo lookin’ at?” he snapped.

Tommy drew himself up to his full six feet and three inches. “You better start talking.”

“Hey, make me, you prick,” said the chef with a haggard grin. “I’ll beat the life outta you!”

Tommy Vercetti, as we’re aware, had just served fifteen years in prison for killing eleven men that were all under orders to take him out. The chef did not manage to beat the life out of him. If anything, the ensuing scuffle seemed to put some of the life  _ back _ into him. It felt like all he’d been doing since he got spat back out into the free world was be sensible—fly cross-country with all the right papers, run from a gunfight like a sane man, take orders from a truly pathetic lawyer, kiss ass and squeeze ass and clench ass but never  _ kick _ ass. Something about living that nonviolently didn’t sit right with him, truly.

Maybe that was why the game wouldn’t leave him alone. It sensed a man who got restless without a good throwdown. It knew where he would be most useful.

In any case, he ended up being the one to beat the life out of the chef. Bent over the man’s bloodied corpse, trying to catch his breath and collect his thoughts—was he supposed to have done that?—he thought he could feel every drop of blood coursing through his body sing in relief. If he hadn’t been so invigorated, his senses on high alert, he might have missed the boxy grey device lying a few feet away from his victim. It must’ve tumbled out of his pockets or something while they were duking.

Turning it over in his hands—it was the size of a fucking brick, and not much lighter than one—he took a while to realize that it was.  _ A wireless phone? _ It had to be—there were the numbers, the buttons for answering and hanging up. He’d only vaguely heard of them coming out, maybe seen Lee whip one out for a moment back at the airport. Oh, he was living in the goddamn _future_ , baby.

And unless ordinary chefs were now getting paid six figures, it also meant he’d at least found the right man.

He was trying to wrestle the phone into his blazer pocket when a shadow and a pair of patent-leather shoes moved into his peripheral vision.

“Oh, way to go, tough guy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Mercedes says it's "difficult" having a rich and powerful father. Rule of funny.  
> Tommy is mostly a man of action (albeit a philosophical one, the way I write him), so he's not deeply interested in Mercedes, but I intend to give her a little more screentime than she ended up with in the actual game. Cut audio of phone calls between her and Tommy seems to suggest that was the original intention as well.  
> Speaking of game footage, I'm using a "movie" on YouTube consisting of spliced cutscenes and gameplay segments to refresh my memory as I go along, and it's taken me this long to cover about 14 minutes of a 2 hour and 35 minute video. I will absolutely be skimming certain parts of the game later on (such as Kent Paul and the Love Fist caper) that don't directly relate to the main plot just for the sake of my sanity.


	4. Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance introduces himself (prematurely, I know). Tommy gets existential.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has the most original material in it so far. I like speculating on what makes a guy like Tommy tick, since that sort of thing tends to be absent in a medium like a video game where the characters are under the player's control. I can buy that Tommy ticks in the actual game because someone is at the controls, but not so much in a written medium. But that's the fun of writing.  
> Less fun is having to refer to an unnamed character as "the man" about a dozen times in the span of a few pages... ergo Lance tells Tommy his name right here, instead of later during the first Diaz mission.

The voice, the shoes, and the shadow all belonged to a black guy who looked about the same age as Tommy, and surprisingly easy on the eyes in a city full of Diazes and Jezz Torrents. It was either that or the distinct lack of floral shirt that gave Tommy some pause.

“Beat him to a pulp?” laughed the man. “That should make him real chatty.”

“You want some too?” Tommy asked heatedly, still panting a bit. The blows he’d sustained in the scuffle weren’t terribly concerning, but a split lip was a split lip nonetheless, and it hurt like one while it lasted. He knew he probably looked like hell with his rumpled, bloodstained, comically out of place suit, and a fine sheen of sweat covering every inch of his skin; at a time like this, that suited him just fine. The man raised his hands in mock surrender and took a couple of steps back.

“Hey, chill. I want what you want, brother.” His smile hadn’t faltered; his teeth were white and gleaming in the half-light. “Your green—and my dead brother’s white lady. Unfortunately, you just silenced our lead.” He gestured at the remains of the chef.

_ My dead brother. _ The laughing Colombian that he’d almost felt an affection for on that balmy evening just before the bullets had shredded him to pieces—so this was the one that had stayed in the chopper and saved himself. Jesus. Tommy shrugged and turned to leave, not feeling as breezy as he hoped he sounded. “Accidents happen. Get lost.”

“Hey, hey, whoa! No need to go all Lone Ranger on my ass. The way I see it, we two hombres in a strange town. We need to watch each other’s backs.”

“My back,” said Tommy squarely, rounding on him, “is just fine, ‘brother’.”

The man chuckled. “You sure about that?”

Fuck, he could hear them too now—footsteps. Measured, deliberate footsteps. Of  _ course _ that chef hadn’t been working alone. Christ almighty.

“Here, take this”—Tommy reflexively caught the little pistol that came flying at him, jeez, this guy acted like guns were a joke—“and follow me. This way.”

With that, the asshole grinned again and sprinted between a couple of buildings and out of sight.

Tommy swore half-heartedly and turned to see that the dead chef’s cavalry was three more chefs. He was living in the future all right, but the future was starting to look like a clown show. He didn’t know whether to be amazed or amused.

Any inclinations he’d had towards either faded quickly as one of the goons caught sight of the body on the ground, and then of the blood-covered Tommy. None of them had time to react before he took aim.

Mercedes (and her car that was almost sexier than she was) now felt as distant as this life had in prison. He felt the age-old jolt in his stomach as his finger curled around the trigger, felt the noise of the city fall sharply away, and wished he could savor this moment a while longer—but of course that was just the softness talking. He’d have to lose it fast if he wanted to actually survive on the streets.

Ironic, life was a joke, &c.  _ Alright, shit, here we go. _

Bang, bang, bang. Three shots, three more bodies. Soft or no, Tommy hadn’t lost his way with good old-fashioned steel.

There was no time to admire his handiwork, though; he wasn’t far from the main beachside road, and there had to be at least one cop on that stretch of respectable gentrified abominations within earshot of him. And he wasn’t feeling like taking his chances and just keeping the strange man’s gun, either. He cast a long, hard look at the small pile of corpses. Gently appreciated the blossoming bloodstains on their creamy white shirts. Crossed himself for luck and took off in the direction he’d seen the man run.

“Over here, muchacho.” Tommy emerged furtively onto the sidewalk to see his chum grinning at him from the passenger seat of  _ another Cheetah _ . Damn it, alright, he was gonna have to get his hands on one too then. There was a limit to what the flesh could bear.

“Why aren’t you driving?” he asked half-heartedly as he got in, though he was glad to have the wheel. The engine was already humming melodiously; he buckled up without waiting for an answer. The man laughed.

“Trust issues like yours? Wouldn’t wanna make you think I was kidnapping you. Nah, you drive, and you drive straight to the local gun shop. One thing you gotta realize about this town—you gotta pack some heat.”

“I’ve figured that much out,” said Tommy drily, this time managing to steer them onto the road without any mishaps. It  _ was _ a very friendly car. “Are you gonna introduce yourself at all?”

“Are  _ you? _ ”

A taut pause. Maybe he was way too soft by now, but fuck it, he could still shoot, and the gun was still nestled in his trouser pocket. “Tommy. Vercetti.”

“Lance,” said the man simply, inscrutable save for his ever-present smile. Tommy surmised it must run in the family.

Neither of them said another word until they’d slowed down outside Ammu-Nation.

As gun shops went, he’d seen better and he’d seen worse. More remarkable than the guns was the man at the counter—almost tall as Tommy but definitely younger, with a scruffy beard and a glaring red bulletproof vest, and a stance like he’d just been called to attention by a general. In short, the kind of punk that thought movies were real life and manning a legal gun shop gave him perfect knowledge of firearms. Tommy sincerely doubted this cashier had ever fired a real gun, much less shot to kill; he’d be easily persuaded if money ever became an issue.

Besides, what kind of hard man flinched—actually  _ flinched _ —at a slightly scuffed-up customer? Sheesh. You’d think this was a candy store. Not wanting to field any questions about the blood, he quickly picked out a pistol much like Lance’s, grabbed a box of slugs, and headed out.

The drive back to his hotel was a quiet one, and he had no objections. He’d had a long day. Lance tipped him an almost Mercedes-like wink as he ruefully hauled his aching body out of the driver’s seat and tossed the borrowed pistol back in through the window.

“I’m going to go see what I can dig up. I’ll be watching you, Tommy.”

With that and one last broad smile, he slid behind the wheel and zoomed off into the late night traffic.

Tommy hadn’t even finished climbing up the faux marble staircase to his hotel room when the little acquisition in his blazer from earlier began blaring. Well, “little” was a charitable word for it; it was bigger than his new gun. He’d almost forgotten about the wireless phone he’d nabbed from the chef, and completely forgotten why people carried these things around. Maybe the trail wasn’t as cold as he’d feared.

“Hey, Leo,” said a genial, somewhat inebriated voice the moment he accepted the call. “I think we got a buyer for Diaz’s merchandise. You gotta give him a ring, man, set up the deal, you know?”

Tommy’s pulse quickened. “Where are you now?” he asked quickly—too quickly. The voice on the other end seemed to grow cautious and a bit more sober.

“You okay, Leo? You sound kinda… different.”

“Just tell me where you are.”

“Who the hell is this? Put Leo on, man!”

“Leo’s gone away for a while,” said Tommy grimly, fully aware it wasn’t going to work, but unable to resist a brag. “He left me in charge.”

“Screw you, man,” snapped the voice, and he was left alone with the trilling of the dial tone and his newly galvanized thoughts.

*

Before Harwood, Tommy had fancied himself to be the kind of guy who wasn’t pussy enough to have nightmares. He was a bit wiser than that now, after a great many unpleasant nights in the slammer where he’d found himself fending off the eleven hitmen over and over, but he really had believed—and hoped—that Harwood would be the worst of it, the one and only event in his life gruesome enough to trouble him even in his sleep. That had been true enough for a while. It wasn’t any more.

This was somehow worse than Harwood; it was what followed. Prison. He’d been back behind bars with about five more years staring him in the face, and that was all. No fights. No guns. No life-threatening situations. And yet, as he dragged himself to the shower, sweatier than he’d ever been, he thought he’d rather suffer through a dozen Harwood flashbacks than have that one again.

What Harwood and prison had in common—and perhaps what made them nightmare-worthy—was that he’d been powerless to stop both of them. There was no way he could’ve predicted the set-up with the hitmen, and there was  _ really _ no saving him from the consequences of the law, not that time. It was a miracle he got off with only fifteen years (he snorted out loud in the shower at his own choice of words here,  _ only, _ like it hadn’t been a fucking lifetime for him) and even that he owed to Sonny.

And Sonny wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted to feel like you owed anything to.

He’d kind of hoped the coke deal would have gone some way towards returning the favor—that and  _ doing time for the family _ , as the s.o.b. had so warmly put it—and… well. Just goes to show how even the smartest, readiest of men don’t control their own lives any more than they control where the wind blows.

His lip, which had scabbed over in the night, was stinging again.

_ È la vita, _ he thought dully. It brought him no comfort.

Tommy could feel his will to stay involved in this shitshow eroding like the dried blood that was currently pooling in the shower drain. He closed his eyes, inhaled a lungful of steam, and tried to imagine himself in Mercedes’ car. Wind at his back and sun in his eyes. Radio on full blast. Maybe a gun in the glove compartment, just in case, ‘cause even in his wildest fantasies he knew he’d never truly shake off the game now.

But in his wildest fantasies he was a free man, and that made all the difference in the world. He was free to disappear. He was free to drive off into the sunset and give this beautiful city the finger as he left it behind. He was free to crash through the barricade closing off the bridge to the mainland and veer off into the water below, strapped into the driver’s seat as the sea closed over his head, and in that moment he would be at peace knowing that he would never have to worry about no fuckin’ cocaine again, or money, or Rosenberg’s pale face, or the game. Or Sonny.

Damn, since when was  _ dying  _ a more pleasant prospect than dealing with Sonny?

Either way, he knew one thing for sure now: he could deal with staying in the game, but as long as he answered to anyone at all, he might as well still be in the slammer. Young Tommy had willingly been a second-in-command to Sonny when all he wanted was to bruise his knuckles and not tax his brains much about it. Then he got jumped, was carted off by the fuzz, and died in the loving arms of the state for his negligence. Old Tommy was going to have to be smarter than that.

If he wanted to really be free again, he had to gun for number one now, and God help anyone who thought they could stop him.


	5. Carrington

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Sonny have a few words. Tommy meets Carrington and gets his hands dirty.

The next morning was dull and drizzly, but it was with new resolve that a somewhat damp Tommy strolled into the Harrison.  He pushed open the well-oiled mahogany door to Rosenberg's office to find him in deep conversation with a cowboy hat.

“Avery, it goes without saying—”

He abruptly stopped talking as Tommy’s heavy footfalls echoed on the hardwood floors and both men turned towards him. “Avery”, was it? Where had he heard that name before—?

“Tommy! Tommy,” bleated Rosenberg before he had the time to finish searching his memory. “Any progress? Wait, no no, no—tell me later. Tell me later. Tommy, this is Avery Carrington—I believe you met at the party?”

He needed to get better at the whole names-and-faces thing. “Not in person.”

The cowboy hat got to his feet and shook his hand with gusto. “Howdy,” he said, with a slight smile that Tommy didn’t know what to make of. He sure as shit wasn’t smiling back; he wasn’t a smiley guy.

“Avery here has a business proposition—”

He leaned over the desk to give Rosenberg his best intimidating glare, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Haven’t we got other things on our mind?”

“I’m trying to keep the wolves from the door,” snapped Rosenberg, barely even flinching. “Would you  _ please _ cut me some slack? I’m stretched like a  _ wire _ and even if I’m dead by the end of the week, I’d like to think I didn’t die poor—”

“Now just calm down!” boomed Carrington. “ _ Both _ of you,” he added, nodding pointedly at Tommy, who’d opened his mouth to retort. He closed it again and slumped into a seat with a grunt. Rosenberg seemed to have gotten accustomed to him, and harder to scare; for some reason this annoyed him more than the fact that he was wasting their damn time.

Carrington smiled again, this time approvingly. “Son, you help me, and any greaseballs giving you a hard time…” He drew a hand across his throat. “I’ll see to it that they take a long dirt nap.”

That  _ was  _ more appealing to Tommy than whatever money might’ve prompted Rosenberg to take up the offer.

“Okay,” he said heavily, trying not to sound downright defeated. “What can I do for ya?”

Carrington told him. Tommy didn't care much for starting shit with a bunch of no-name truck drivers, but he didn’t care for being marooned in a new city with sub-standard allies and a drug deal mystery to solve either, so that was that.

“Should be a  _ riot. _ ”

Working among “the guidos from up north”, as Rosenberg put it, had come with its own spoken and unspoken codes of honor. Apparently that was gonna be something he’d have to unlearn down here anyway. He had just exited the Harrison, idly wondering if he should “borrow” the little pissant’s car just to yank his chain a bit, when his phone started to ring again.

He whipped into the adjacent alleyway. Stared at the distinct lack of caller ID on the display. Thought hard for a few seconds. Hit accept and held his breath.

“Hey, Tommy,” said the voice of Sonny Forelli, pleasant and relaxed. “How're ya doing? How's the sun tan?”

Amazement, consternation, and rage merrily chased each other across his mind for a couple of moments before he could muster up a response.

“I ain't got no sun tan,” he snarled, trying to shield the phone from the rain with his free arm. The drizzle was starting to thicken into a downpour.

“Well, you ain't got my money, either,” said Sonny lightly, “so I'm wondering to myself… What are ya doing? So tell me, Tommy. What  _ are _ ya doing?”

“I’m looking for the money, Sonny.” Like he could even think about anything else at the moment. “Don’t worry.”

Sonny seemed to get closer to the receiver; when he spoke again, Tommy thought he could feel his boss’ rancid, beery breath on his ear. He knew from personal experience that Sonny’s breath was always beery—whether or not he’d been drinking any that day (not that he often went a day without the stuff)—and right now he sounded like he had a couple in him already, even at this blessed hour of the morning when it couldn’t be  _ that _ hot up in Liberty. Maybe more than a couple. Maybe it took several rounds for him to gather up the balls to let Tommy know he’d found out about his new phone. Tommy chose to believe that for his own sake.

“I am worrying, Tommy,” said Sonny, with beer on his breath and stone cold evil in his heart. “That’s my style—‘cause I seem to have this problem in my life with  _ unreliable people _ . Don’t be an  _ unreliable person _ , Tommy, please. Do us both a favor.”

Had it been  _ unreliable _ of him to do fifteen years rather than rat out the family?

“I’m looking forward to hearing from you.”

There was a click. And that, too, was that.

Tommy ended up making a couple of rounds of the entire island on a stolen bike to let off some steam, paying little heed to the lukewarm summer rain or the cursing of pedestrians when he nearly ran them over. By the time the clouds began to part and the sun was weakly shining through again, he was soaked through to the bone. Whatever. He’d need a change of clothes for the job anyway.

The heavy dungarees that Rafael outfitted him in were so scratchy that if he really had been a truck driver, he thought he could easily have rioted just for being put to work in them. He was actually welcoming the prospect of punching a few jaws as he pulled up by the delivery depot. It seemed like total bedlam in there, too. Workers all over the place, looking almost as mad as he felt, kicking up such a ruckus that he could hardly make out the panicked, almost Rosenberg-like voice echoing over the loudspeakers:  _ “Please disperse! The management will discuss any grievances in the appropriate manner!” _

Tommy snorted loudly into the commotion. If any of these louts actually believed that this would get them what they wanted, they needed a little roughing up anyway. And better from him than the cops. Or the security personnel he spotted on the perimeter, scanning the throng for the smallest sign of violence with hungry, narrowed eyes.

He reached out at random into the sea of denim dungarees and grabbed a handful of shirt, swinging with his free hand—but his punch didn’t connect. His would-be victim had raised a leathery palm to block his fist with excellent timing and was now peering at him with narrowed eyes. Peering  _ down _ , not  _ up _ , as he was used to and preferred by far.

Things just weren’t going to get better today, were they.

Tommy tensed up on reflex, bracing to dodge or run and try his luck elsewhere in the crowd, when the giant actually  _ spoke _ . “You don’t work here.”

He must have raised his voice quite a bit to be heard over the noise, but to Tommy it sounded like a murmur. It also sounded stupid.

“Soon you won’t be working here either, chum!” he shouted, twisting free and swinging blindly at the crowd again. “Come find me later if you wanna start making some real dough!”

This time he did manage to land a hit, and to his relief, the victim swung back immediately. Tommy twisted away from the blow just in time for it to land squarely on the giant’s broad chest; he heard the howl of anger behind him, heard another punch, and decided the seed had been sown. Once he’d watered it for good measure by tickling a couple more knuckledraggers into joining the scuffle, security, champing at the bit, was already rushing in.

“Sticks out, boys!” one of them called (quite uselessly, since they all had their sticks out) as they invaded the crowd. “Let’s crack some commie skulls!”

That would keep the pigs busy for a while.

Tommy snaked away towards the inner section of the premises where half a dozen trucks were haphazardly parked. A lone guard leaned against the  _ SPAND EXPRESS _ logo emblazoned on one of them, yawning widely. A new guy who got the job no one else wanted? Or an old hand who could no longer be bothered with the action? Either way, he knew one thing—no management would trust these hounds with guns. Just another reason to work someplace where management didn’t matter.

One of these days, he’d figure out if he loved or hated what he did for a living.

He took aim with his pistol, said a prayer, and shot the poor bastard dead at fifteen yards. Nobody was going to hear that gunshot over the sounds of a couple dozen mall cops getting their rocks off. But they  _ were _ going to hear the sweet symphony of the trucks exploding—oh, yes. Tired and angry though he was, Tommy cracked a strained smile.

By some miracle of convenience, these trucks seemed to be assigned to some highly volatile cargo. Maybe that was why the voice on the loudspeakers sounded so panicked, he thought, as his eye fell on the red barrels that stood importantly between a couple of the vehicles; the drivers had to know what they were carrying, and if they’d had the brains, they would’ve weaponized it already. But that ship sailed when they decided to make it a fuckin’ strike instead.

If strikes worked, they brought dialogue. They brought compromise. They bought the little guy a few more weeks of borrowed time before the noose of the system began to tighten around his neck again.

And if they didn’t work, well…

Tommy closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the grisly  _ thwacks _ and  _ whaps _ of rent-a-cop batons. He trusted his hand to shoot straight for about thirty yards with this pistol. He put a distance of at least twenty-five between himself and the explosive barrels, realized he didn’t have anything to plug his ears with, swore eloquently, and fired.

By the time the explosion was well underway, he had already expertly vaulted the corrugated metal fence and landed in the alley behind the compound. He’d only caught the briefest glimpse of the carnage as he was jumping, but it had been wonderful—just as wonderful as he’d expected (though his ringing ears didn’t quite agree with his eyes on that one). He didn’t care to guess if there’d be any casualties besides the guard he shot. There were worse ways to go in 1980s America; he’d take being incinerated in an explosion over being beaten to death by the pigs.

As he sped away from the site on his bike, Tommy thought he could’ve hummed if his hearing wasn’t still on sabbatical. His first real job since getting out of prison… with a bit of luck he wouldn’t have to do jobs at all for much longer, but it did make him feel better, knowing the money he was making had nothing to do with Sonny and his goons in Liberty. He thought about how he might never have to set foot on Sonny’s turf again and felt better still. He had to remind himself of the missing cash, and the axe still poised above his neck, to get his feet back on the ground.

It was just as well that he didn’t let himself start feeling too good just yet, because it would be several days before he got back on the trail. In the meantime, he ran more jobs for Carrington—the pay was good, and he discovered a liking for the man in spite of himself, even if he was a bit of a character. He wouldn’t have dressed in tweed and beaten some stinking rich s.o.b. to death with a golfing club for just anybody. Or air-dropped dynamite onto a construction site from a helicopter he had no practice with. He supposed that knowing how to fly one would come in handy at some point down the line, but he was very relieved to finally stumble out of the cockpit, too jittery with adrenaline to even appreciate the explosions this time.

At least he’d remembered to plug his ears for that job. Which was good, because he was collecting his two grand from Carrington when his phone started ringing again.

_ If it’s Sonny, _ he thought wildly as he hurried away, not knowing how he planned to complete that thought, _ if it’s Sonny again—I swear to fucking God I’ll—I’ll—! _

Then the gravelly boom of Colonel Cortez filled his ears, and he was spared the trouble of thinking further.

“Hola. Is this Mister Vercetti?”


	6. Treacherous Swine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy kills some people and has a chat with Mercedes. Around here is where the "graphic depictions of violence" thing really starts to kick in, so heads up.

Tommy’s shoulder was starting to ache something fierce from the weight of the chainsaw as he jogged down the stairwell after his mark. He paid it no mind. This would be over soon anyway.

Gonzalez had been a dead man from the moment Cortez chose Tommy for the job. Actually chasing him down and doing the deed was almost an afterthought; he was reminded of those snooker matches Sonny had liked to play with him before prison, where he would go in already knowing who would win because of who he was up against. It was an underlings’ way of signaling that he respected the chain. Respected that Sonny wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to lose at anything.

That kind of certainty had sat sourly in his mouth at the time. But of course, back then he hadn’t been the one expecting to win.

His sneakers echoed formidably on the faux marble of the stairs, but he could hear Gonzalez squealing right over them, well within earshot. 

“Oh sweet  _ Jesus _ ,” he was saying.  _ Good, good. Get your prayers out now while you can. _

They burst out of the house into the gleaming afternoon, Gonzalez just a yard ahead now, stumbling desperately down the front steps. Even in this neighborhood, Tommy knew he didn’t have long before someone called the cops. Good thing these floral shirts were hard to lose in a crowd, eh?

“Oh sweet Jesus, I’ve wasted my life and my looks—”

Tommy couldn’t resist a shout of laughter at that. “Just stand still and I’ll make it quick!”

Gonzalez did nothing of the sort, of course, but the blistering heat was already beginning to take its toll on his speed. Tommy was on him in seconds. Ignoring the shrill protests from his shoulder muscles, he managed to revv up the chainsaw’s motor just before its wickedly rusty blade connected with Gonzalez’s back.

“I pay you double, Tommy! Double—”

It was not a clean job, and certainly not as quick as he’d promised. He didn’t have to be a lumberjack to realize that the bastard’s shirt was rapidly gumming up the mechanism; by the time the blade was deep enough inside Gonzalez to have killed him beyond all doubt, he’d sprayed their surroundings with all manner of blood and gristle and scraps of cheap synthetic fiber. He had no idea how long it took from start to finish. After the first bits of bone flew into his face, he simply checked out and began reciting a Hail Mary as muscle memory took over.

But even half a minute was a long time to be gruesomely murdering an unarmed man in broad daylight. Not bothering to retrieve the chainsaw from the mangled corpse, Tommy flung himself through the open window of a nearby sedan and floored it.

_ “If nobody understands you,” _ purred a despicably smooth voice from the speakers, unprompted,  _ “we do! Flash FM—” _

Tommy punched the dial till the radio turned off, leaving a sloppy, bloody handprint on it as he did so. There was blood on the wheel, too. There sure as hell was blood all over  _ him _ , plus all manner of other unsavory giblets from Gonzalez’s person. The car, which already smelled like any well-used car did, was going to be stinking to heaven in minutes.

It didn’t matter right now. None of it mattered. His teeth were chattering in his skull and his shoulder felt like it had popped clear out of its socket. He was having a hard time keeping his foot steady on the gas; it kept threatening to send him hurtling into the nearest brick wall, headed straight for sweet oblivion at last.

Were those sirens he heard on the wind? Already? There was no way to know for sure. In his present state, he was certain he would start seeing and hearing  _ anything _ if he thought about it for long enough. Even Sonny’s ugly face, contorted in a truly diabolical sneer, saying  _ You’ve gone soft, Tommy, I wouldn’t even know it was you! _ Even his mother—long dead and buried, and may she stay that way—and her cold, tight-lipped smile. The weary stoop of her back as she straightened her glasses and said, just as she always did,  _ We all do what we have to, Thomas. È la vita. _

_È_ _la vita._

“Yeah,” he said aloud, his throat dry. “Alright.”

It was the first time he’d opened his mouth since the kill; when he closed it again, he tasted blood, still dripping down his face. It was the foulest thing his tongue had come into contact with since prison food. He pursed his lips to spit, deliberated briefly, and then swallowed it instead.

*

Cortez was effulgent.

“Tommy!” he boomed from his recliner the moment Tommy manifested on deck, seemingly oblivious to how he looked and smelled. “Come, join me! This looks delicious, huh? Tapir snout?”

Although he’d managed to collect himself a little on the way to the yacht, more palatable foods than tapir snout would have made Tommy’s stomach lurch just the same at that moment. He declined vehemently.

“Tommy, you are like a pampas breeze that has freed me from the stench of corruption,” said Cortez, stretching languidly as he spoke, looking more weather-beaten than ever in his khakis under the bleaching glare of the tropical sun. “Although I must appear to mourn his passing and carry on with business as usual.”

Tommy, still caked in Gonzalez’s entrails and sweaty to boot, didn’t feel particularly free of stench at the moment. “This isn’t getting me any closer to my money.”

Cortez let out a genial laugh and gestured at him to draw closer. “You are not in Liberty now, my friend,” he chuckled. “Here we do things differently. I will continue with my enquiries, but in the meantime, I have a valuable deal to close.”

“Favor for a friend, Cortez?” said Tommy wearily, fighting the urge to massage his shoulder right where he stood.

“You are a good friend, Tommy—I knew you would not let me down.”

And so Tommy (after a warm shower, thank  _ Christ _ ) found himself at the mall in Washington that evening, trying not to think about his previous deal and how it had gone. They weren’t at the docks now, after all, and this was just tech, not drugs. Who’d go shooting up a commercial venue during business hours for a bunch of goddamn chips? That’s right. Relax, Tommy.  _ Relax _ , god damn you. But he wisely kept his ass clenched nonetheless.

“The rain,” said his man, turning to face him as he approached, his expression comically wistful. “She is  _ très _ wet this time of the year.”

“Look, Cortez sent me. Just give me the damn chips.”

“ _ Comment? _ Oh— _ d’accord _ .” The man broke into a relieved laugh. In that moment, nervously clutching his briefcase, he looked nothing like the Colombian with the coke and yet exactly like him, and without warning, Tommy was seized by the overpowering belief that his French connection was not going to walk away from the deal alive.

He clenched harder; so hard, in fact, that he felt no surprise at all that things instantly went to hell.

_ “Freeze, imperialist American pig!” _

The voice rang through the mall with such self-assurance as could only belong to a certain species of cop. The courier leapt a foot into the air and took off like a startled rabbit. “You American idiot! They followed you here!”

_ “That is the property of th—” _

Tommy did not learn whose property the chips were, because he was already cocking his pistol as he ran for cover. It was remarkably easy to shoot the French cops dead, in the end. Or perhaps it only seemed that way after butchering someone with a fucking chainsaw. Death was easier, and more elegant, to command from behind the barrel of a gun.

Now if he’d just had a gun in the coke deal, things might have gone as simply there, too.

By the time Tommy had leapt into the closest car in the parking lot, the courier had a significant head start, but not the common sense to flee on a vehicle. In any case, he much preferred this chase to the Gonzalez one. He could’ve knocked the guy dead right then, but if he wasn’t careful he’d send him flying—and the briefcase with him, which certainly wouldn’t withstand the impact of an oncoming car. Instead, he took to leisurely cruising about twenty yards behind as the poor bastard stumbled through the streets. He even turned on the radio while he was at it. It blared so all-pervadingly that he nearly missed the ringing of his cell phone.

“Tommy!”

Tommy felt his spirits, which were already fairly high, lift further. They didn’t soar or anything like that, though. He still hadn’t decided how much of his liking for her was just a liking for her Cheetah.

“Hi, Mercedes.”

“Tommy, I heard you killed Gonzalez!”

“No,” said Tommy amiably, “there was an unfortunate fire at his place.” He rounded a corner just in time to keep his eyes on the Frenchman. “I think he might have burned to death in his acrylic shirt.”

Mercedes laughed riotously, and he felt it in his groin. “Tommy, I’m  _ so _ proud of you. I knew you were a real man—and he was an awful  _ trouser stain _ of a man. You make me proud to be your friend.”

Yup, keeper material.

“But listen, Tommy… I’m so  _ bored _ . When are we going to have some fun?”

“What do you mean?” asked Tommy, his voice just a bit hoarser and his pants just a bit tighter all of a sudden. The courier looked like he’d try to take refuge in a building soon, and he wasn’t much feeling like getting out of this car with a hard-on. He’d have to take his chances.

“I got a new apartment up in Vice Point,” she said, not the least bit coy. “I wanted to get away from daddy’s work friends. It’s nice to have a place of my own in the city, but now I get bored. And very lonely.”

He ended up crushing the courier against a compound wall like an insect as Mercedes talked. Not having his person physically desecrated by the carnage this time was a big plus at least, but he’d turned down the radio to take the call, and they both heard the disastrous  _ crunch _ of a man dying to three tons of metal and gas.

“Tommy, what  _ was  _ that?”

“Only a fly.”

“The talking kind?” she asked keenly, as he knelt besides the body and pried the briefcase out of the still-warm hands.

He shrugged. “Just spoke French.”

“I know you’re busy fighting and killing and corrupting people, but don’t forget about me, okay? I just want to have fun.”

He could almost see her pouting, her lips dark and shiny, like her eyes.

He set a course straight for the colonel’s yacht. He’d planned to get a night’s sleep before going to see Cortez again, but the sooner this was done with, the sooner he’d have some time on his hands—time to himself, or to spend with Mercedes, whichever he desired.

“Come see me soon, okay, Tommy?” she purred in his ear, and he knew which one he desired immediately.

“I’d love to. I’ll catch you later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mercedes' dialogue here is cobbled together from a bunch of recorded calls that were apparently cut from the final game (not all of it was usable, so I just distilled several conversations to make one good scene out of them). She actually congratulates Tommy over killing Diaz later on, not Gonzalez, but I thought it worked better here.


End file.
